Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1887-01-26
FALSE ECONOMY.
Why the Use of Cheap Articles Is in Real
itY Rank ExtraYagance.

| Ine mOSC eXtraVagant living IS cheap
living. A meal of the very cheapest
food is very apt to be a meal of some
poor quality of provision. A meal of
such food gives little or no strength to
body or mind. Your strength of body
and mind is your main stock in trade.
1t has value in dollars and cents. A
steady diet of poor food may make
you, if not "sick-a-b -bed," sick on your
feet, sick while at your business, lessen
your snap and vigor, and so lose you
money. Cheap things, when they are
poor things Gas IN most cases they
are), cost far more than good things.
You buy q cheap trunk. 1T bursts
asunder in compliance with the effort
and prayer of the baggage-slinger,
| betrays secrets, lets cats out of the bag,
and SO costs far more money, and pains
! besides. than a good one You buv a
| suit of cheap clothes. They lookcheap
to commence with. 1t is not bust
ness recommendation to ''look cheap"
In three weeks the gloss is worn off.
| They fade as leaf. In six weeks they
look as much worn as really good
texture of cloth would be in four
months You pay for two suits of
clothes more than for one good one.
| You get from them neither wear,
| quality or style. You do get a second
OF third-rate recommendation from
them to that class of people who Judge
man by the ''cut of his iib," and
grumble at it as much as you may,
these are a very necessary class of
people to make good impression on.
So cheap dressing is very extravagant
dressing.
use of the very best articles, SO as to
get the very best out of them. A sick
horse may be bought for little money,
to be of little or no use, a care on
your mind, an expense to your pocket,
and a bringer to you of nothing but
worry. This is an extravagant horse.
Competition which seeks to lower
the price of every thing is the
death of trade. 1t cuts down lower
and lower, until at last no profit is
left any one. Then the factory stops.
The workman has nothing to do. The
boss fails, absconds or goes into other
business. Competitive cheap labor
does not tend to make artists. 1t does
tend to make imitators. copyists and
counterfeits. A skilled needlewoman-
one who took an artistic pride in her
work-said to me after week expe-
rience in one of New York's great re-
tail bazaars, where scores of cheap
dresses ''in the latest STYLE were
turned out daily. There is no en-
couragement in our workshopfor good,
careful, painstaking work. The girl
who can rush the most thread through
the most yards of cloth and turn out the
most dresses in reality not much more
than basted together, is the one best
praised and best paid by her employer.
When you buy such dress you en-
courage the making of shams, imita-
tions, counterfeits You encourage
work done without conscience, and
only for cash. You discourage honesty.
You discourage the doing of work in
which should be put brains, skill, care,
name for artistic work. You are help
ing ON fraud. You help rascality. You
oppose yourself to justice and fair deal
ing. If you buy where you can buy
the cheapest. without regard to any
thing save the getting of an article for
the least possible money, you are en-
couraging fraud and injustice.
You claim that your labor is lily
paid. Yet when you hunt for the
cheapest article and patronize the man
determined to sell lower than all, you
are putting money in the pocket of the
man whose policy it is to cut down
lower and lower the price of every
thing he sells. If you are making
brooms for living and he is selling
them, it is his aim to force you, di-
rectly or indirectly, to make your
brooms for the least possible money.
The world of manufacture is
now engaged in the endeavor
to make everybody do its work
for as little money as possible in
making as good an article as possible.
When you go into the manufacture of
shoes or hats you set your wits at work
to get other peoples labor for the least
possible money in making those shoes
or hats. You want the work done and
raw material raised for you and
brought to you for the least possible
money. You don't care whether Tom,
Dick or Harry, who grows the article,
or prepares it, OF freights it to you,
gets fair price for his work or not.
You don't care how they live or
whether they get enough to eat or
wear. You don't know them. You
don't want to know them. All you
want of them is their strength, skill
and intelligence for as little money as
possible, so that when all that strength
and skill comes to you in the shape of
hat or coat, pair of shoes, a kettle,
shovel, or a tin pan, you can get four,
six, eight or ten times as much for the
work you do in selling it as they have
done in getting it ready for you to sell.
Ii you Che you laborer or merchant,
capitalist OF trade. unioniSt) buy very
good article at a very low price, you
congratulate yourself on having made
a good bargain. Do you ask: .'Was
the man fairly paid for his labor who
made this articlep" Do / ask itp When
] am trying to beat down the price do
/ not say, with the psalmist: s'It is
naught-it's poor piece of goods any